3.2 - Sygh's Hybrid HoWA (Trickster/Elementalist)

Brief Intro
Everything I make in this game ends up being a claw character or a Scion if I can make it be one. Well this one is both. The appeal of this build is that it has a massive amount of recovery to tank a lot of content, some decent layered defenses and good scaling with gear.


Pros
Extremely high recovery
Budget friendly to get started
Scales well with gear
High EHP for non-chaos damage
Can run near any map mod
Allows for the use of SIN HERALD OF ICE which looks amazing

Cons
Chaos damage can be dangerous
Have to be careful when first entering a map
Constant degen can give you anxiety
Single target and AoE require different skills/setups
Not an amazing boss killer. Loses some recovery and damage charges against bosses.


Important Gear


-Hand of Wisdom and Action (Abbreviated HoWA) allows you to simultaneously scale defense and offense through Intelligence (and to a lesser extent, Dexterity). This is what the build is based around. Pretty cheap, but used to be one of the most potent builds in the game during its prime. Look for a high % Intelligence roll.

-Shaper's Touch give you more scaling for your attributes, making Strength incredibly valuable to you due to it providing % Energy Shield. These gloves remove the need for Accuracy on gear, give you a hefty mana pool, and even give you a high amount of % evasion that we'll take advantage of with a Jade flask.

-This is the item that allows us such a large health pool while still being able to have meaningful recovery. The belt acts as a conditional Ghost Reaver, allowing us to leech both our life and ES and basically add our ES to our total health. The Endurance Charge is luxury but pretty cheap since the belts are basically free. Look for one with 6% Health to ES as well as high Intelligence.

-Not necessary but can be used as a default option that fits the build well. Gives a significant amount of health, damage, and defenses. A rare amulet with high intelligence can be better if it also sports Elemental Damage With Attack Skills or Crit Multiplier. A good "Three Rat Talisman" is ideal here if you can get one with good mods.


Other Slots

Other slots are simple. Look for high ES pieces with Life, Intelligence and Resistances.

-Boots are hard to get a good hybrid pair of with Movement Speed. With or without movement speed affects our movement skill choice later.

-Helmets, Shields, and Chests are significant sources of ES.

-This shield mod isn't necessary, but is very nice to have. Whenever you block, you'll regain 6-10% (With our recovery buffs) of your max ES, allowing you to get a buffer similar to Aegis Aurora and offsetting the degen we deal with. Shields can give VERY high % lightning damage (up to 80%ish) which can be a massive damage increase. A shield with life/ES/% lightning is ideal. Resists/ES on block

-This chest was cheap for a 6l and came pre-rolled, but a very cheap alternative that makes coloring easier is Geofri's Sanctuary. Geofri's Sanctuary further increases the value of Strength and is extremely cheap. Another alternative (though more expensive) is Shroud of the Lightless. Abyss jewels are potent for this build, and Shroud gives us both health and ES with a useful 6th link.

-For Rings, we're going to primarily be looking for damage. Intelligence, Lightning Damage, and Elemental Damage With Attack Skills are all extremely strong for us. Flat ES, Flat life, room for % ES, and even flat ele rolls can also be potent. Opals are ideal, barring that you can use whatever base with good rolls. You can find some really good niche stuff for cheap. You NEED one Abyss Jewel OR a Ring with Fire Damage to Attacks on it so we can trigger our Trickster recovery.

Jewels - Try for BOTH Life and ES on each jewel. One of is fine if the jewel is amazing otherwise.

-Good Watcher's Eye mods are ES Recovery % with Discipline and ES gained on Hit with Discipline. This is not necessary and these mods can be expensive. It's just another form of recovery to multiply.

-This goes in our tree near Ranger due to our better scaling with Int than Dexterity.


-Attributes and crit! Helps our scaling. Not 100% necessary, can be replaced with an excellent rare jewel.

I try to get as many abyss jewels as possible due to the incredible defenses they can give via flat rolls of both health and ES. You NEED one Abyss Jewel OR a ring with Fire Damage to Attacks on it so we can trigger our Trickster recovery.

Other mods to look for:

Added Elemental Damage to Attacks (Lightning Preferred)
Attack Speed /// Attack Speed if You've Dealt a Critical Strike Recently
Onslaught (Need one of this)
Global Critical Strike Multiplier /// Critical Strike Multiplier if You've Killed Recently
Damage if You've Killed Recently

Examples:


Defenses

(Defenses with Rumi+Jade up, without Atziri/Diamond)

This is the fun part of the build. The build gets a large effective health pool (Easily 10k+, potentially 12-13k+), meaningful Physical mitigation, Evasion, and even an ok amount of Block. Ignore the recharge rate in the picture, it varies wildly.
-We recharge 6-10% (dependent on shield mod roll) ES per block
-Gain 92 Life Per Hit
-Potentially 60 ES per hit (with a Watcher's Eye)
-Can Leech 80% Leech per second (Vaal pact + 100% Increased Recovery)

What this means is that our recovery is normally enough to see us through any spike damage due to our EHP and our massive recovery rate. That recovery rate comes 50% from Trickster (Which is why we need Fire damage from somewhere for the DoT to trigger), and 50% from Arakaali (with Blood Rage being negated by Immortal Call).

Gem Links

Spectral Throw-Greater Multiple Projectiles(can carry a Slower Projectiles)-Damage on Full Life-Elemental Damage with Attack Skills-Increased Critical Strikes/Increased Critical Damage/Added Lightning Damage/Lightning Penetration

---Depending on gear levels, Added Lightning Damage can be competitive or better than Critical supports. Lightning Penetration can also be very good into high resist targets/bosses to offset Spectral Throw's weak boss potential. If you want to map with this, consider carrying a Slower Projectiles to make bosses a good amount faster.

Reave-Multistrike-Elemental Damage with Attack Skills-Damage on Full Life-Increased Critical Strikes/Increased Critical Damage/Added Lightning Damage/Lightning Penetration

---Follow the same logic as above for the blue links. Reave does higher damage than Spectral Throw does but doesn't offer the the ranged clear. Better boss killer than Spectral Throw but worse than Blade Flurry. Consider it an inbetween. Requires a Vaal Reave setup. Ruthless is also a viable gem here but requires heavy off coloring.

Blade Flurry-Damage on Full Life-Elemental Damage with Attack Skills-Increased Critical Strikes/Increased Critical Damage/Added Lightning Damage/Lightning Penetration/Elemental Focus

---Blade Flurry offers the highest single target damage of options as well as the easiest colors for ES chests. Slow for clearing due to low base area of effect.

Cast When Damage Taken (Level 1) - Immortal Call (Level 3) - Vortex (Level 4) - Enfeeble (Level 5)

---Basic defensive setup. Triggers our recovery, Vortex offers safety for bosses, and Enfeeble in case you haven't been able to kill to apply Warlord's around (mostly for single target).

Herald of Ice-Herald of Thunder-Curse on Hit-Warlord's Mark

---Curse application for far and close range. Allows very reliable generation of Endurance Charges for our immortal call and general physical reduction.

Whirling Blades-Fortify-Faster Attacks

---Without MS on boots, Whirling Blades might feel better than Shield Charge usability wise. Really ends up being preference.

Shield Charge-Fortify-Faster Attacks

---With MS on boots, Shield Charge is the clear favorite and is much more reliable at applying Fortify coming into packs. Choose one of these two.

Discipline

---Defensive aura. We get significant % ES, so the more flat we can squeeze in the better.

Blood Rage

---Needed to trigger Arakaali and some decent Attack Speed.

Ice Golem-Lightning Golem

---Our statsticks from being part Elementalist! They give significant dps but die often :(

Ancestral Protector(For Spectral Throw)/Ancestral Warchief

---Warchief is preferred but doesn't buff Spectral Throw if that's the skill you're using.

This can be used as a damage setup (Damage on Full Life, Elemental Damage with Attack Skills, Elemental Focus) or as a utility setup (Blind, Culling Strike).

Levelling and Passive Tree

31 Points
Low damage to start with. Sorry! Scion feature! You get lots of resists and meaningful defenses though. We get the lightning damage cluster because I normally level with Ewar's Mirage or Fidelitas Spike and some AoE skill. You can also just use generic uniques with Sunder which is always good.
60 Points
Pathing, as well as some damage nodes. After here is where we can fill out with mostly stat/damage nodes. You can start using hybrid gear, and look forward to HoWA/Shaper's Touch soon.
90 Points (or close)
Done pathing. Got Vaal Pact. Got all our Jewel slots. Connected to Shadow now. Got important health notables. After this is just cleanup.
Finished Tree
Last decent life nodes, grabbing attack speed for usability.
***The attack speed nodes are NOT the highest DPS things you can get, nor are they necessary. They just feel really good to have. Some little things that you can change for personal flavor are:

Heartseeker
Finish Life in Revenge of the Hunted wheel
Area of Effect cluster in Witch
Finish Scion Life wheel
Arcane Focus
Throatseeker
30 Strength nodes (decent life, high ES per node)
Crackling Speed
ES Nodes going into Witch (really efficient)
Deflection if you have a good ES shield
Drop 3-node Jewels if you don't have good ones to fill the slots

You can also opt into going Inquisitor as your second Ascendancy after trickster. It gives really comparable damage to Elementalist as well as status ailment immunity on consecrated ground you make. The regeneration is useless but it's less golem reliant as well.

Closing Notes
I really enjoy the massive recovery this build gets with a pretty solid effective health pool. I also really like Soul Tether and wish it got more attention for the ease with which it boosts your EHP. The biggest drawback is definitively the need to switch gems(potentially even colors) for different content. Its still a little different take on HoWA that I hope some people have fun with.

I'll be frequently streaming live at https://www.twitch.tv/sygh where you can ask me ANY questions ANY time...or just hang out. As I do more content with the build I will upload videos and I'm sure I'll make it again in the future.